portland part one

We have been wanting to take a trip to Portland, Oregon for a while now, as we kept hearing how great the city is. So we bit the bullet and bought plane tickets up there this past weekend to celebrate our two year anniversary. I am happy to report that we were not disappointed. We fell in love.

We were lucky that the rain held off, but even with it, I can’t imagine not loving the place. It has all of the charm and quirkiness of Austin (Texas) but even more beautiful scenery. The neighborhoods and downtown area were so cute and quaint (reminded me of the North East), and the plant life was so lush and green and beautiful. We were only able to make it a weekend trip, but we will definitely be visiting again soon.

My husband’s cousin and his cousin’s girlfriend live in an adorable house in Portland, so we were fortunate to get to stay there during our visit. After dropping off our luggage, our first stop was to get a cup of coffee at Stumptown and stand in line at Voodoo Doughnuts.

My favorite was the Maple Bacon Bar, but what you aren’t seeing underneath that first row of donuts is the Tex-Ass, which is the size of 6 donuts (naturally).

The downtown area is actually pretty small – after breakfast with his cousin, we were left to wander around the city all day on our own, as everything is within walking distance.

They hold a Saturday market along the waterfront (I think it may actually be all weekend), so we spent some time walking through it and making a few purchases. Whitney finally got a new belt (above), and I got a couple new additions for our gallery wall.

Lunch was a giant turkey leg next to the water.

My husband designs structures for a living, so he could definitely appreciate the enormous amount of bridges in the city (Steel Bridge above).

The photo on the left is ridiculously blurry, but it encapsulates how pretty the streets are. The right photo is their famous Powell’s Books, a book store that takes up an entire city block and is several stories high. There were so many books that it was a bit overwhelming; we spent quite a bit of time in there but didn’t even come close to seeing every section. I’m pretty sure they have every book (and other things like cards) that you could so desire; it’s definitely worth a visit! We came home with a cookbook.

We took a break at Deschutes Brewery, where Whitney had their sample tray. I had a cider (I don’t drink beer) and actually enjoyed it because it tasted like sparkling apple juice! We had a batch of their curry fries (so good), while Whitney was able to catch a little bit of some football games.

I don’t have more photos of the rest of the night, but we went to this super fancy Whiskey Library (it’s exactly what it sounds like and was probably Whitney’s favorite part) and grabbed a late night snack at a food truck park.

Besides the obvious awesome things I mentioned above, Portland is wonderful in so many other ways. Walking/biking/public transportation is encouraged so much that the bike lanes are almost as wide as a regular car lane, and pedestrians really do always have the right away. I could go on and on about how I love it so much I now want to live there, but I’ll be back to share more of our little day trip just outside of Portland.